The Theory of Paulo Freire
THE THEORY OF PAULO FREIRE by Carien Fritze
(a community worker/organizer in London, England)
WHO IS PAULO FREIRE?
Freire is a Brazilian. He was born in the North East in 1921 of middle-class parents, better off than most.
He then went on to work with the poor and this sharing of their life led him to the discovery of what he describes as the culture of silence, of the dispossessed. He came to realise that the ignorance and lethargy of the poor people in his country were the direct product of the whole situation of economic, social and political domination.
At the age of 23, Freire married a teacher and through her became interested in education. In 1959 he became Professor of History and Philosophy of Education and began experimenting with new methods of teaching adults to read and write. He was more concerned to help people to become aware of their under-dog situation than just to teach them reading and writing. He wanted to confront their pessimism and fatalism by enabling them to become aware of their capacity to shape their environment and to obtain the means to do so. Through his experience of teaching illiterate people, Freire soon discovered a method of teaching in which he showed how quickly literacy can be achieved provided it is linked to local social and political issues. Freire has linked teaching and consciousness raising together in his method.
In 1964 there was a military coup in Brazil which overthrew the democratic regime. It was inevitable that
Freire would be thrown out of his own country. For the new regime a person like Freire, who was not only helping peasants and slum-dwellers to read and write but also to think and act, was an unwanted person. After a short spell in jail, he went to Chile, where he worked for 5 years with the Chilean Institute for
Agrarian reform and as a Unesco consultant, developing his adult literacy experiment a step further. He then went to Harvard University where he worked with the Centre for
(a community worker/organizer in London, England)
WHO IS PAULO FREIRE?
Freire is a Brazilian. He was born in the North East in 1921 of middle-class parents, better off than most.
He then went on to work with the poor and this sharing of their life led him to the discovery of what he describes as the culture of silence, of the dispossessed. He came to realise that the ignorance and lethargy of the poor people in his country were the direct product of the whole situation of economic, social and political domination.
At the age of 23, Freire married a teacher and through her became interested in education. In 1959 he became Professor of History and Philosophy of Education and began experimenting with new methods of teaching adults to read and write. He was more concerned to help people to become aware of their under-dog situation than just to teach them reading and writing. He wanted to confront their pessimism and fatalism by enabling them to become aware of their capacity to shape their environment and to obtain the means to do so. Through his experience of teaching illiterate people, Freire soon discovered a method of teaching in which he showed how quickly literacy can be achieved provided it is linked to local social and political issues. Freire has linked teaching and consciousness raising together in his method.
In 1964 there was a military coup in Brazil which overthrew the democratic regime. It was inevitable that
Freire would be thrown out of his own country. For the new regime a person like Freire, who was not only helping peasants and slum-dwellers to read and write but also to think and act, was an unwanted person. After a short spell in jail, he went to Chile, where he worked for 5 years with the Chilean Institute for
Agrarian reform and as a Unesco consultant, developing his adult literacy experiment a step further. He then went to Harvard University where he worked with the Centre for